“Media Destruction Guidance”
Pierre Tristam / Candide's Notebooks, January 16

This is priceless. The National Security Agency has a sub-site called "Central Security Service." Open its "products" page and you're greeted, among other things, with handy directions called "Media Destruction Guidance," on how to maniuplate, destroy, hide or doctore government documents: "Media Destruction Guidance is available for those who need to sanitize, destroy or dispose of media containing sensitive or classified information." At least the NSA is straight-forward. The page then goes on to list NSA-approved paper-shredding devices,encryption decices, devices designed to wipe out hard drives and other "magnetic storage devices," CD and DVD destroyers and other "high security disintegrators." To be sure, it's just a guide to products available commercially, which the NSA merely recommends as certifiably destructive. Corporations and particularly paranoid types do this sort of thing all the time. I see an increasing number of shredders in the homes of people who take themselves and their documents a little too seriously. And it's probably a matter of time before the shredding industry begins to market the Iddy Biddy Diary Shredder to 12-year-old girls. But it's curious to note that the NSA (and not, for instance, the Government Services Administration, which usually handles these products-related matters) is in charge of recommending information-sanitizing and destructive devices. Your government at work.